David Buckel, 60, a prominent LGBT rights lawyer with Lambda Legal died after setting himself on fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Saturday. Buckel sent messages to multiple news outlets, including The New York Times, explaining his intention to set himself on fire to protest the world’s usage of fossil fuels at the expense of the environment.

“Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather,” Buckel wrote the Times in an email. “Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

“A life of privilege requires actions to balance the harm caused, and the greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility,” Buckel added.

“For if one does not leave behind a world better for having lived in it, all that remains are selfish ends, sometimes wrapped in family or nation.”

Buckel’s suicide echoed dramatic protests by self-immolation from past years overseas. Buddhist monks burned themselves to death to protest a repressive regime in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

In more recent years, Tibetans have done the same to protest Chinese rule over Tibet. Buckel cited the Tibetan self-immolations in his note, the Daily News reported: “This is not new, as many have chosen to give a life based on the view that no other action can most meaningfully address the harm they see.”

Buckel was the lead attorney in Brandon v. County of Richardson arguing on behalf of Brandon Teena, a murdered transgender man whom Buckel argued successfully that a country sheriff failed to protect.

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Will Kohler is a noted LGBT historian, journalist and owner of Back2Stonewall.com. A longtime gay activist, Will fought on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic with ACT-UP and continues fighting today for LGBT acceptance and full equality. Will’s work has been referenced in notable media venues as MSNBC and BBC News, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Hollywood Reporter, and Raw Story,